unionfs?

On Thursday 21 April 2005 11:21, I wrote:
> use unionfs to pretend that the CD can be written to.
A magic binary blob (klibc-based) that does this trick is available at:
http://ums.usu.ru/~patrakov/uniontest/initramfs_data.cpio.gz
It may or may not work with the current SVN livecd because I omitted reiser4
kernel patches and the unionfs kernel module may or may not fit.
Arbitrary file can be overwritten and even "deleted" from the livecd until the
reboot. This initramfs expects the following layout of the CD:
./boot/isolinux
./boot/isolinux/boot.msg
./boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin
./boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg
./boot/isolinux/linux
./boot/isolinux/options.msg
./boot/isolinux/splash.lss
./root.sqfs
./sources/binutils-2.15.94.0.2.2.tar.bz2
<other sources>
./sources/zlib-1.2.2.tar.bz2
root.sqfs is produced by running the following commands:
umount -a # so that /proc and /sys are empty
# and /dev contains only the minimal set of nodes
mksquashfs / /iso/root.sqfs -e /boot /lfs-livecd /iso /sources
As for bootscripts, the "mountkernfs" and "udev" scripts are needed in
addition to the standard livecd set. No need to mount squashed /usr or unpack
root.tar.gz and etc.tar.gz tarballs.
Sorry for not providing sources and makefiles. I have not yet scripted the
build procedure of this initramfs. Will do so in a day or two.
--
Alexander E. Patrakov